1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a meta data customizing method by which a format of meta data described in a structured language such as an RSS (RDF (Resource Description Framework) Site Summary, Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) or such, can be customized.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a technology using an RSS draws attention, and, a facsimile apparatus or such having a function of storing a facsimile reception image in a predetermined URL (Uniform Resource Locator), and delivering list information including the URL, has been proposed (for example, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2006-54732).
Further, since an RSS is standardized data of an XML (eXtensible Markup Language), and is advantageous so that handling such as modification or aggregation thereof can be made flexibly, a system may be considered such that a facsimile apparatus having such an RSS delivering function is combined with a scheduler having an RSS reading function, and a facsimile reception history is read from a PC (Personal Computer) or such, as one of schedule management operations.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a system configuration in the related art including a facsimile apparatus having an RSS delivering function. In this system, a scheduler 3 is connected to a facsimile apparatus 2 having the RSS delivering function connected with a transmission source facsimile apparatus by means of a telephone line, and a client 4 such as a PC is connected to the scheduler 3.
FIG. 2 shows an example of an RSS delivered from the facsimile apparatus 2, in which one item of a reception history is included in a description D1 part of an item element, and the number of latest reception histories continue. In the description D1 of item element, a title of the reception history, a link to a received image, date/time, a destination, a line, the number of sheets, a result and so forth, are included.
As described above, by combining the facsimile apparatus 2 having the RSS delivering function and the scheduler 3, it is possible to read the facsimile reception history from the remote client 4, as one of the schedule management operations, whereby user friendliness improves. However, since the RSS delivered by the facsimile apparatus 2 is generated based on a fixed template, a format is fixed, and thus, a problem may occur when displaying is made from the scheduler 3 or so.
FIG. 3 shows one example of displaying from the scheduler 3, in which the contents of the title element (i.e., the ‘ABC COMPANY’ part of ‘<title>ABC COMPANY</title>) is displayed together with the time.
However, when a week view in which a part corresponding to one day is defined vertically as shown, all the contents of the title element may not be displayed in a case where the contents of the title element is long, as shown in FIG. 3, (a). In contrast thereto, when a day view in which a part corresponding to one day time zone is defined horizontally, an information amount prepared for displaying may not be filled with the titled element contents in a case where the title element contents are short, as shown in FIG. 3, (b).
FIG. 4 shows another example of displaying from the scheduler 3. In this example, in a case where the title element includes the time as in ‘<title>10:23 ABC COMPANY</title>’ (i.e., such a format may be set since it is convenient that the time is included in the title element in an RSS reader which displays only the contents of the title element), the time is displayed duplicately, as shown, when the scheduler 3 further adds the time to the title element contents.
Thus, a tag of each element and the contents thereof included in the RSS are fixedly determined, a client can do only selection therefrom, and the above-mentioned problem may occur when the fixedly determined ones are not proper. Further, the RSS delivering side cannot determine what should be included in the tag. It is possible that the RSS delivering side prepares a template for RSS generation for each RSS reader of a client. However, since there are innumerable RSS readers, such a way may be unrealistic.
Further, in a case where the RSS includes desired information, it is possible to extract thereof in a certain way. However, when necessary information is lacked, the desired information may not be extracted only by means of customization on the side of a client. For example, in a case where a name of a destination is lacked in the title element, the desired information may not be extracted on the client side.
Furthermore, although customizing with a regular expression or such (i.e., scraping) is available, 100% accuracy may not be expected, and thus, a proper displaying manner may not be achieved consequently. For example, in a case of ‘<title>2006-01-09 Ricoh Co., Ltd.</title>’, it may not be possible to positively determine whether or not the top numerals thereof correspond to date/time, whether or not some character string exists subsequent to the company name, or such.